Dhaka Dust

Can’t occupy the same space at the same time

unless, of course, you land in Dhaka, rickshaws

five or six abreast. They are all here:

studded metal backboards ablaze with red flowers,

Heineken boxes, a Bangladeshi star with blue eyes,

peacocks, pink fans of filigree. The drivers sweat

and strain in the plaid lungis, and each face

seems to say Allah takes and Allah

gives. A woman breathes into her green shawl

against the dust on the road’s median. A man

with a plaid scarf (surplus from The Gap)

slaps the rump of a passing gray car

as though it’s a horse or a dog. You are there, too,

your maroon sleeves begin to stick

despite your deodorant. Under your orna,

a laminated map and digital camera

cradled in your lap. One strand of silver

wiry by your ear. Bits of children’s songs

snag in your windpipe. Other words surface:

sweatshop and abject poverty, and you let them.

They mix with the low rumbling that began

on the plane, ms and bs tumbling, amplified

in the streets: the rickshaw bells’ light metal,

the nasal peal of horns. On this continent,

the ocean’s giant tongue has swept away

miles of coastline, and bodies flood the water.

Dust sifts into your lungs and sinks—feline,

black, to remain long after you leave.

Source: Dhaka Dust (Graywolf Press, 2011)